Friday, July 2, 2010

Thoughtful, literary-focused questions are overrated.

The smart kids in CM already asked the thoughtful, literary-focused questions. Here are mine: 1. How do you pronounce Bente? Should there be one of those angled eyebrows over the last e?

We’re gonna have to meet sometime, sweetie, so I can couch you in person, but basically you pronounce it as if there’s an a at the end instead of an e. Benta. Not Bentie, not Bentay. (Yes, I’ve gotten both of those, and worse. These days, I’ll answer to practically anything that starts with a b. Practically.) Or more accurately, you pronounce the second e just the same way you pronounced the first, no more and no less.

There’s no eyebrow over the e. In Norwegian—and Swedish, Danish, German, and a lot of the other Germanic languages—we pronounce e’s at the end of words. Always. In English they’re silent, but in our part of the world they’re not.

2. Did you spackle and drill and hammer for your remodeling series, or was it all authorly imagination?

My husband and I are in the process of closing on our tenth house since 2000. Basic math should tell you that that comes out to a house a year. We’ve lived in eight of those. Every single one has been a fixer-upper, that we renovated around our ears—and those of our children—while we lived in them. The other two were quick flips we picked up for the extra cash and turned around in a couple of months. So yes, I’ve done plenty of spackling and hammering and drilling, but not for the DIY-series. Instead, it was the other way around: the DIY-books came out of what I was doing anyway.

(New cover for the next DIY book, #4, Mortar and Murder, above. I got it yesterday and thought I'd share.)

3. Did real estate agents give you inside-scoop stories for your Realtor series? You know, bodies under the beds, booty in the bathrooms, that sort of thing.

Yes and no. I used to be a real estate agent myself, until I got too busy writing to keep up with it, so a lot of what makes it into the books is stuff that happened to me personally. And my husband’s still in the business, so some of these things happen to him regularly, as well. He’s one of those trouble-magnets, so if there’s a weird buyer out there looking for a house, my husband ends up finding him. I also have a lot of friends still in the industry. None of us have ever come across a dead body—at least not a human one—but I’ve seen my share of dead rats, birds, and cockroaches, not to mention naked people in beds, sleeping as well as doing other things.

Sorry, that was four, but I got carried away. Thanks, Bente, and delighted you're with us. The excerpt on your website is great.

I’m glad you like it, and absolutely thrilled beyond words to be here. And I’ll be back tomorrow, to answer Meredith’s question: I was intrigued to read you were an actress. I know some writers act out their characters (if only in their heads). How has your theater background influenced your writing?

I write whenever I can. Sometimes I can't, for one reason or another, and then I don't. I don't freak out over it, either, because I've learned that that doesn't do any good and just adds guilt. I try not to be too - religious term coming up - legalistic about it all. But apart from that, yeah, I write all the time. I don't do much else. Watch very little TV, my reading has taken a nosedive since I started writing, I don't have any hobbies left, since writing used to be the hobby and now it's the job...

When the kids are in school, I write basically from 8am or thereabouts until 2pm or so, when I have to pick them up. Of course, there's lot of tweeting and FBing and blogging and commenting and emailing and other stuff going on during those hours, as well; it isn't all adding words to the WIP. And I don't always get to write on the weekends, since that's family time, but sometimes I squeeze in an hour or so. It takes me roughly 3 months to write a draft - 90K words - so I aim for at least 1,000 words a day. Don't always get them. Sometimes I write a lot more, sometimes less. Those tend not to be happy days, but at least I made progress.

So is your last e pronounced? In Gericke, not in Shane. I know that one isn't. But if the last e in Gericke is pronounced, and pronouced like an e should be pronounced, then it's probably a lot like my e...

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Mondays with Susan

Susan C. Shea debuts a new series, a French village mystery, Love & Death in Burgundy in spring 2017 (St. Martin's Minotaur). The third in her Dani O'Rourke series came out in Feb. 2016. She lives in Marin County, CA.

Mondays with Terry

Terry Shames writes the Macavity Award-winning Samuel Craddock series, set in small-town Texas. In 2015 BookPeople dubbed her one of the top five Texas mystery authors.

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RM Greenaway has worked in nightclubs, darkrooms, and courthouses. She writes the B.C. BLUES crime series, featuring RCMP detectives Leith and Dion. Her first novel COLD GIRL, winner of the 2014 Arthur Ellis Unhanged award, will be released 26 March 2016.

Tuesdays with R.J.

R.J. Harlick is the author of the acclaimed Meg Harris mystery series set in the wilds of Quebec. Her love for Canada’s untamed wilds is the inspiration for her series. The 4th book, Arctic Blue Death, was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel.

Wednesdays with Cathy

Cathy Ace writes the globe-trotting Cait Morgan Mysteries, (Bony Blithe winner 2015 - Agatha’s Canadian cousin), and the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries, set in her native Wales. She lives in rural British Columbia.

Wednesdays with Dietrich

Dietrich Kalteis is the award-winning author of Ride the Lightning, The Deadbeat Club, Triggerfish, House of Blazes and Zero Avenue. Nearly fifty of his short stories have been published, and he lives with his family on Canada’s west coast.

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Catriona McPherson is the Anthony, Agatha, Macavity, IndieFab and Lefty winning author of the DANDY GILVER series set in Scotland in the 1920s, as well as two darker stand-alones AS SHE LEFT IT and THE DAY SHE DIED. Catriona lives in northern California with a black cat and a scientist.

Thursdays with Jim

James W. Ziskin (Jim to his friends) is the author of the Edgar-, Anthony-, Barry-, Lefty-, and Macavity-nominated Ellie Stone Mysteries. He's 6'2", weighs 200 pounds, and writes like a girl.

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Fridays with Danny

Danny Gardner's work has appeared in Beat to a Pulp, Out of the Gutter, and Literary Orphans Journal. His first novel, A NEGRO AND AN OFAY, will be released May 2017 by Down And Out Books. His short fiction will be featured in JUST TO WATCH HIM DIE, a Johnny Cash inspired anthology, published by Gutter Books in Winter 2016.